Demon's Kiss (6 page)

She wondered if—no,
wished
—the cops would stop them.

She let out a high squeak of protest as Ciarran disengaged his right hand from the grip, the sound snatched by the roaring wind. Then he closed his fingers around hers, warm and strong. Her terror receded, just a little, just enough to let her breathe, let her think. And then they were pulling into the parking lot of the Motel Seven.

She was still alive. Blessedly alive.

Stumbling from the bike, she shot a glance at Ciarran. He’d shredded a demon in front of her, destroyed any notion she had that her world was good and safe, then dragged her onto the back of his bike and made her face her greatest fear. Frig.

Breathe. Nice and slow.
In through her nose. Out through her mouth. God, she’d never practiced this much relaxation breathing in her life, but this night was different. Tonight she’d been slapped with enough stress to make her an expert.

Her panic reined by a tenuous thread, she looked up to find Ciarran studying the cars in the lot. He shot her a close-lipped smile, as though challenging her to comment on the ride.

“This way,” he said, and walked across the parking lot toward the end of the row of units, like he knew exactly where he was going. With a mental shrug, she followed.

Keeping her behind him, he turned the handle of the motel room door and pushed it open. Remembering how insistent Wired Guy had been about a door with a lock that worked, Clea couldn’t imagine that he hadn’t checked and double-checked his security.

Which meant one of two things. Either they had the wrong room, or locks posed no barrier to a sorcerer.

She blew out a breath as he led her inside, keeping his body angled protectively in front of hers.

Not that there was much to protect her from, she realized as she scanned the interior. Wired Guy wasn’t here. The only occupant of the room was a wizened old man who was stretched out fully clothed atop the generic brown bedspread, his breath rattling in his frail chest.

White shirt. Dark suit. She frowned at the strange familiarity of it.

Clea dragged the edges of Ciarran’s leather jacket tight and glanced around the room. A dresser with a TV bolted in place. Dull brown curtains. She shivered. It was cold in here. Frigging cold.

Colder than it was outside.

She wondered if the old guy had accidentally cranked the air conditioner instead of the heat.

“It’s not him,” she said. “Wired Guy was younger, by about five decades—”

The man on the bed turned his face toward her, and she caught a glimpse of his eyes. Cold. Dead. There was a loud buzzing in her ears, and she felt like she’d slipped on the ice and fallen on her butt, hard enough to knock the air out of her.

“. . . or maybe not,” she whispered, watching the man’s eyes widen in recognition as he stared at her.

And she recognized him, too. Wired Guy’s eyes were looking out at her from the wrong face.

He felt a burst of admiration for her. Clea’s world was all but falling apart, and brave girl that she was, she was fighting to take it all in. To believe what, for her, must be unbelievable. To stay sane while she figured it out.

He liked her for it. Respected her courage.

She was a warrior, his Clea.

His
Clea.

Christe.

He had no room anywhere in his life for this human woman. No room for liking. No room for wanting. She was a distraction he could ill afford.

Distraction was his deadliest adversary.

His maimed hand tingled, the darkness writhing and twisting, searching for release. Gritting his teeth, he clenched his ruined fingers in their leather-and-alloy prison, and he pulled it back, leashing the snarling beast. Yeah, that was the price he had paid for distraction. The loss of a damned part of himself, and the gain of his eternal millstone, the demon seed that gnawed at him, threatening to take the whole of him if he let it.

“Sit,” Ciarran ordered, leading Clea to the chair in the corner, relieved that she let him. He had no wish to waste time on useless argument.

He crossed to the side of the bed and stood watching the rise and fall of the old man’s chest.

“Hello, demon-keeper,” he said, keeping his hands fisted, his power in check.

“If you’ve come to kill me, you’re almost too late.” The keeper pushed himself to a sitting position, slowly, painstakingly. “I’ll be dust in another few minutes. Nothing but dust.” He sounded infinitely relieved, almost glad, as he said it.

Ciarran nodded, recognizing the man’s acceptance of his fate. “Your demon has been terminated, demon-keeper.”

“Don’t call me that!” The man looked down at his age-spotted hands, the translucent skin showing a network of blue veins. “Matthew. My name is Matthew.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Demon-keeper? More like
it
kept me.”

“Did you summon it by choice? For longevity?” Ciarran glanced at Clea as she made a small sound of confusion. She was perched on the edge of the chair, her knuckles white as she clutched the armrests, her eyes wide. He turned back to the keeper. “For riches?”

Matthew stared at him blankly for a moment. “For my wife,” he whispered, his breath rattling in his chest.

Without the demon’s dark magic, the keeper was aging at an accelerated rate, rapidly losing the youth and vigor he had enjoyed as the demon’s companion.

“Tell me,” Ciarran commanded. “Tell me all. Quickly.”

He wanted the man’s story, in all its detail, to sift through and study and, hopefully, find a clue. There was something amiss between dimensions, a smear of filth in the
continuum.
Darqun had felt it, too. And Javier. Only once before had Ciarran encountered such discord, and the end result of that occasion had been eating at him for twenty years. His gaze flicked to Clea and back. Absently, he ran the back of his gloved hand up and down along his thigh, trying to still the twisting, winding buzz that thrummed through the ruined sinew and bone.

“Diphtheria. My wife had diphtheria.” The keeper’s voice was thin, weak. “I went to the church to beg God for her life, because there was no man who could help her. She was dying. Choking to death on a thick gray membrane that grew in her throat and clogged her every breath. I would have promised anything, traded anything, even my own life, to save her.” He shuddered. “Traded my soul.”

Matthew fell silent, and Ciarran heard the creak of the chair as Clea shifted.

“There was a book there. In the vestry,” Matthew said. “One I’d never seen before. And as I opened it, the words were clear to me, though I knew not how to read. I said them, once, again, each recitation more fluent than the last, and on the third time, it came. One moment I was alone, and the next, I was in the company of a great gray beast with teeth as sharp as any ravening dog’s.”

Matthew turned his head toward Clea. “You know the beast. It came for you.”

She was shivering, huddled in the depth of his leather jacket, and Ciarran figured part of the problem was the frigid temperature in the room, and the other part was shock. For an instant, he thought she might succumb to her fear, but then she raised her head and met his gaze, visibly mastering her agitation.

Brave, strong Clea.

His
Clea. Emotion hummed through Ciarran, vibrating with strength and certainty. The urge to claim her, to protect her, was unbelievably strong.

Unnerved by the intensity of his thoughts, he dragged his gaze back to the keeper. His gloved fist burned, white-hot pain, the evil restless, so restless tonight.

With a grunt, Matthew fixed his gaze on Ciarran, studying him. “You’re just a kid. What? You’re maybe thirty? Thirty-five? Do you even know what diphtheria is? Hasn’t been around much for decades.”

A kid. Ciarran almost laughed. “Tell me about the demon.”

“Ah. The demon. He was to be my sweet wife’s savior, and mine.” The old man gave a long, panting laugh, but the sound was rife with bitterness and regret. “He said he’d spare her life. And all I had to do was say the words one last time. Bind him to me so he could leave the church, follow me to my home. I did it. For the love of my wife, I did it. Said those cursed words and bound him to me. Sold my soul.”

“Demons know no honor.” Ciarran had heard this story, in its varied and sad versions, for centuries. He had heard, too, of those who summoned a demon for power and riches and life eternal. Either way, the outcome was the same. The keeper became the kept, slave to the ever-growing evil of the demon that was released.

Matthew coughed, the sound wet, fluid building in his lungs as his heart slowly gave way, its pumping action growing ever weaker. He coughed again, and his body convulsed as though he was in great pain.

“Water.” Clea leaped from the chair, took a step forward, her face a mask of concern. “Would you like some water?”

Compassion flowed from her, and Ciarran wondered at her willingness to be kind to a man who had brought her destruction to her. Matthew was the one who had obeyed the demon, who had brought it into Clea’s life. And Ciarran had no doubt that she knew it. Yet she was not immune to the man’s suffering, willing to ease it despite what he had done.

He was not certain how he felt about that. Perhaps a little awed.

“No. No water.” Matthew raised one hand weakly, then let it fall back against the coverlet. “I’m fine. Fine.”

After a moment, he slowly raised his head and stared at himself in the mirror that hung across from the bed, above the cheap pasteboard dresser. “Not three hours ago, I looked as young as you, sorcerer.” With a wheezing sigh, he fell back against the mattress, his reserves depleted.

“Appearances can be deceiving.” Ciarran smiled grimly in acknowledgment of the dark, bitter venom, the putrid rot that ate away at him from the inside out. Only
he
knew the strength of the darkness that was his daily battle. Not even his comrades, the Compact of Sorcerers, knew the worst of it.

“Hnn.” Matthew nodded. “So it is gone? Killed?”

“Your demon is terminated, bound to you no longer.”

“And so I am free. I knew it. Sensed the very instant it was gone.” Matthew looked at Clea, pausing to take a rasping breath. His words were punctuated by shallow gasps for air. “You are the woman from the motel. I wanted a room. And the demon wanted you.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I found that out pretty quickly.”

“I tried to lock it in until I could get to the city, to an alley. Let it feed on a pimp or a murderer.” He paused, sucked in a rattling gasp of air, and when he spoke, his voice was faint and labored. “I couldn’t stop it, not completely, but over the years I gained some knowledge, learned how to cast wards. In a room with a lock.”

As though reminding her that she had turned him away, he nodded at Clea. “I had some say in its prey, and I tried to make it choose where I willed it.”

The man’s voice was so faint as to be almost inaudible. Ciarran leaned closer. “The demon broke from me tonight, proving that I had deceived myself. So long as I was close enough to maintain the link, it could move from my side. I had no power over it, no true influence.” Labored breath, a rattling whisper. “It only chose to let me believe I did. Until tonight. Tonight its lust for her was stronger than its desire to trick me.” He paused, made an obvious effort to rally his strength. “I am glad she is unharmed.”

“As am I.” Ciarran’s gaze strayed to Clea, his gut wrenching at the thought of what might have been had the demon succeeded in capturing her. He slapped back the unfamiliar intensity of the emotion. He should have long ago stopped feeling anything. A soldier. A killer. He was an instrument in a battle between dimensions. Nothing more. And if he told himself that often enough, maybe someday it would be true.

He had never learned to stop caring altogether. Every death, every moment of grief that he sensed in the humans he protected, rubbed his senses like pumice rock. But this, this inexplicable anger, this feeling of utter rage at the thought of the slightest harm befalling Clea Masters, this was outside his experience.

My Clea,
he thought. And the darkness inside him shifted restlessly, as though it, too, laid claim to her. An unsettling thought.

“I wanted to die the day after I summoned it,” Matthew said, his voice thin and reedy. “You know, it was true to its word. It promised to take away the diphtheria, to save my wife. And it did. She got up from that bed as though she’d never been sick.” He closed his eyes, and for an instant, Ciarran thought he would speak no more.

Clea shifted her chair closer, took the dying man’s hand, offering what comfort a human touch could.

Fingers fluttering weakly, Matthew gave a wheezing sigh. “We loved and laughed and made foolish promises, and for the space of a whole day and a night, I thought I’d made such a fine bargain. Tie myself to a demon, let it stay here on earth, and in exchange I got my wife’s life.”

“And what happened after a day and a night?” Clea’s voice, low and soft.

Matthew’s head wobbled from side to side, too much weight for his rapidly failing frame. “In the morning, it ate her. My wife. Tore her throat open. Right in front of me. Her blood running in rivulets along the earthen floor, soaking the ground, turning it black.” Tears coursed down the man’s cheeks, and Ciarran could feel the pain wafting from him, still fresh and stark after so many decades.

“Ate her?” Clea whispered, her words edged with horror.

“I grabbed an axe, tried to kill it, and when that failed, I tried to kill myself. But I couldn’t die. We were one. Bound as one. And that meant that
I
had killed my wife. Killed her. Not saved her.” The breath left him in a rush. “In the early years, the demon ran amok. But later . . . later, I learned a little of how to keep it in check. I tried not to let it prey on innocents.”

Kill him.
The darkness writhed inside the glove, slithering restlessly.
Kill him.

Ciarran’s head jerked up. Clea was staring at him, eyes wide, as though she sensed the terrible swell of power.

Kill him.

Out. It wanted out, to kill and maim. To feed and grow stronger and take over all that he was.

With a low growl, his gaze locked on Clea’s, Ciarran pushed back against the foul tide, and for the first time since the demon had taken his hand, the agony, the fight, was almost bearable. He frowned, confused.

Matthew coughed long and hard, blood welling from his lips. Ciarran cast his power with his right hand, wrapping the old man in magic, easing his pain.

“Matthew, have you seen others of your kind? Other keepers?” he demanded.

Matthew studied him, ancient blue eyes heavy with regret and the memories of a century of horror. “I’ve yet to see another. We were heading somewhere close, though. The demon would tell me nothing, but I sensed its growing excitement the farther north we moved. It was
called,
I am certain of it, leading me, talking of strength and numbers and the wall between dimensions. The realm of fire. The plane of man.”

Clea was moving now, inching her way around the bed to shift closer, as though seeking his proximity. Leaning toward her, Ciarran let the side of his arm brush her shoulder and felt the instant surge of energy that spiked between them. She made a choked sound, surprise, perhaps dismay. But she did not break the connection.

“Go on.” Ciarran bid the keeper, biting back his frustration. There was nothing new in the man’s revelations. Nothing of use. He had hoped for more. Hoped for an explanation of the hum of threat and wrongness that spread through the
continuum,
an explanation for the reason that full demons, albeit minor ones, were walking unfettered in the human plane, unmatched by keepers. Alone, like the ones he had found in the alley some weeks past.

“We were going to open some sort of portal.” Matthew rallied, his voice a little stronger, his words coming in a rush, as though he was driven to get them out before it was too late. “The demon said that with the help of the conduit, their leader, the Solitary, would come through the breach.”